The boys were used to active work with their cameras and liked to be in action, but they waited with as good grace as possible.  In fact, there was nothing else to do.  Their moving picture apparatus was sealed and kept in the Foreign Office, and would not be delivered to them until their permits came to go to the front.  So, liking it or not, the boys had to submit.

They called several times on the young officer who had treated them so kindly, to ask whether there were any developments in their case; but each time they were told, regretfully enough, it seemed, that there was none.

“But other permits have been longer than yours in coming,” said the officer, with a smile.  “You must have a little patience.  We are not quite as rapid as you Americans.”

“But we want to get to the war front!” exclaimed Joe.  “We want to make some pictures, and if we have to wait——­”

“Possess your souls with patience,” advised the officer.  “The war is going to last a long, long time, longer than any of us have any idea of, I am afraid.  You will see plenty of fighting, more’s the pity.  Don’t fret about that.”

But the boys did fret; and as the days passed they called at the permit office not once but twice, and, on one occasion, three times in twenty-four hours.  The official was always courteous to them, but had the same answer: 

“No news yet!”

And then, when they had spent two weeks in London—­two weeks that were weary ones in spite of the many things to see and hear—­the boys were rather surprised on the occasion of their daily visit to the permit office to be told by a subordinate: 

“Just a moment, if you please.  Captain Bedell wishes to speak to you.”

The captain was the official who had their affair in charge, and who had been so courteous to them.

“He wants us to wait!” exclaimed Joe, with marked enthusiasm.  For the last few days the captain had merely sent out word that there was no news.

“Maybe he has the papers!” cried Macaroni.

“I’m sure I hope so,” murmured Blake.

The boys waited in the outer office with manifest impatience until the clerk came to summon them into the presence of Captain Bedell, saying: 

“This way, if you please.”

“Sounds almost like a dentist inviting you into his chair,” murmured Joe to Blake.

“Not as bad as that, I hope.  It looks encouraging to be told to wait and come in.”

They were ushered into the presence of Captain Bedell, who greeted them, not with a smile, as he had always done before, but with a grave face.

Instantly each of the boys, as he admitted afterward, thought something was wrong.

“There’s something out of the way with our passports,” was Joe’s idea.

“Been a big battle and the British have lost,” guessed Macaroni.

Blake’s surmise was: 

“There’s a hitch and we can’t go to the front.”